After the genome, the proteome and the lipidome, now the beard-ome…
genome archive.
DNA gets broken, and this could give rise to cancer. However, the broken end of the DNA is able to use a similar sequence for repair, and researchers at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology have found out how this works, in a paper published in Molecular Cell.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have brought the $1000 genome a step closer by developing a high-speed genomic sequencing device, as part of a nearly decade-long drive by the National Human Genome Research Institute to bring the cost of sequencing a human genome down to $1,000.
Under the Baltimore classification, viruses can be classified into DNA viruses and RNA viruses – but this may be overturned by the discovery of a virus with a DNA-RNA hybrid genome, according to a paper published in Biology Direct.
According to a study in Molecular Biology and Evolution, frogs that are fit have genomes that change faster. Researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina, carried out fitness tests on 500 frogs from 50 species found in Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama.
In early 2011, an E coli strain known as O104 emerged in Germany, and was responsible for close to 4,000 cases of illness and 48 deaths. San Francisco company AvidBiotics has used the draft genome of this form of E coli to create a highly targeted bactericidal protein, showing that targeted agents for use against emerging bacterial pathogens could be generated within days-to-weeks of acquiring the pathogen’s genome sequence.
Since he was found by hikers in 1991 frozen in the Ötztal Alps in Italy, the 5300 year old Oetzi the Iceman has been a bit of a mystery – in fact he has been described as the world’s oldest murder case. Now his genome has been sequenced, while we still don’t know how he died, we perhaps know a bit more about how he lived.
Hints and tips: SHRiMP (SHort Read Mapping Package) is a software package for aligning genomic reads against a target genome.
The Schmallenberg virus is a new orthobunyavirus that affects animals such as sheep and cattle. Researchers are sequencing the genome and looking for potential routes to create vaccines, though these are likely to be a couple of years away.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies has presented its first DNA sequence data from its novel nanopore ‘strand sequencing’ technique and proprietary high performance electronic devices GridION and MinION. These have potential to sequence a human genome on only 15 minutes.
